Portal:English football/Selected article/8

The City of Manchester Stadium (currently known as the Etihad Stadium for sponsorship reasons) is a sports venue in Manchester, England. Originally designed as part of Manchester's failed bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics, the stadium was built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games at a cost of GB£110 million.

After the Games, it was converted for use as a football ground. This conversion involved removing the running track and installing it elsewhere and also adding 12,000 more seats. The operation cost over £35 million and took a year to complete before it became the home of Manchester City, who moved there from Maine Road in 2003 signing a 250-year lease.

The stadium is bowl-shaped, with two tiers all the way around the ground and a third tier along the two side stands. Currently, it is the 6th largest stadium in England and tenth largest in the United Kingdom with a seating capacity of 55,017. Since being converted into a football stadium, it has hosted the 2008 UEFA Cup (Now Europa League) final, a couple of England football internationals, rugby league matches, a boxing world title fight, the England rugby union team's final group match of the 2015 Rugby World Cup, and summer music concerts during the football off-season.

A 7,000 seat third tier on the South Stand was completed on August 2015, and a £300 million redevelopment programme of the existing North Stand entailing the construction of a new hotel with 400 rooms, covered fan park for 6,000 people and increased net capacity to 61,474 is expected to commence in 2023 and be completed by the end of 2026.